About Montessori Education

A truly educated person continues to learn long after the years spent in the classroom because he is motivated from within by a natural curiosity and love for knowledge. Dr. Maria Montessori felt the goal of education should not be to fill the child with facts but rather to cultivate his own natural desire to learn.

Dr. Montessori, in decades of observing and studying children, concluded that they pass through sensitive periods when they possess a unique and amazing aptitude for learning. To take advantage of these sensitive periods an environment (classroom & campus) is specifically prepared to stimulate their particular interests and allow children to exercise their innate ability to learn. If the sensitive periods are missed or if the environment is not properly prepared, learning becomes difficult and tiresome.

The "Montessori method" consists of a carefully developed set of materials which create the proper environment for children at each stage of their development. In this environment and with the guidance of trained teachers, they can develop their intellects and acquire all the skills and content of human civilization. Over sixty years of experience with children around the world proved Dr. Montessori's theory that children can learn to read, write and calculate as easily and naturally as they learn to walk and talk.

Parents should understand that a Montessori school is neither a baby-sitting service nor a play school. Rather it is a unique cycle of learning designed to meet the natural development of the child. Those children who learn the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic in this natural way have the advantage of beginning their education without drudgery, boredom or discouragement. They gain an early enthusiasm for learning which gives them the keys to become truly educated persons. At this stage of development, children have an "absorbent mind", soaking in facts like a sponge. They learn through concrete experience, and they tend to work best by themselves. The curriculum of the primary Montessori classroom is designed to meet these characteristics.

About AMI

Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) was established in 1929 by Dr. Maria Montessori to maintain, propagate and further her ideas and principles for the full development of the human being. AMI, with headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, is the oldest recognized authority on Montessori education worldwide.
For more information, please visit their global website at http://ami-global.org, or the US branch at http://amiusa.org.